I don’t know about you, but fall for me is bittersweet. I love the changing colors of the leaves, the crisp, fresh cool air on a Saturday morning, football and trips to the cider mill. However, the loss of the beautiful summer weather is such a bummer and it gets more difficult to just let the kids go out and run around outside – rain, cold, early darkness. Yuck.
At our house, the worst part about fall is the leaves. We have, on our small neighborhood lot, about 10 large Oak and Walnut trees. This is just on our property. We live in a neighborhood called “Oakside” if that gives you any indication of the number of large, established trees that surround our home. So fall brings the cumbersome task of moving every last leaf to the street for pick up by the city. I will say – I’d much rather do that than burn them – but I’ll complain none the less.
Nick, my husband, and I spent around 2 hours out in the yard Wednesday evening blowing and raking, mowing and dumping. Samantha played in a pile of leaves I made for her and Caleb sat and happily watched all the activity in his 
stroller. We cleared out most of the yard – including our large side yard with thousands of leaves. We certainly felt a great sense of accomplishment when it was completed – even though we couldn’t see our clean yard because of the darkness! I left for work the following morning in the dark and then returned home at approximately 5:15pm. Pulling in the driveway was the most disheartening feeling – our yard was completely covered in leaves — AGAIN! It was as if we had done nothing the night before. What a bummer.
So we’ll be back at it again this weekend – blowing and raking, mowing and dumping. And I’m sure the next day we’ll feel like we did nothing.
As one of my friends posted on Facebook: “If leaves were money, I could retire!” — AMEN!
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